I had a great start to the season today at Lakeside, despite the illness and injury I've had to deal with in the last two weeks. I had been feeling sick for a few days before the race but I got in a couple light workouts yesterday and felt pretty good. After my swim I went for my follow-up at the hospital for my wrist (trips to the hospital are rarely part of my race weekend routine) and I was cleared to race!
I got to the race site and caught up with some long lost friends from Worlds last year, then down to business. I finally got my race morning routine down both in terms of nutrition and warm-up and I felt great standing on the start line for the first time in almost a year. My race strategy was pretty simple, race smart and be in control, and I also wanted a swim PB. I had a strong swim and got out of the water in 11:19 and hit the mat at 11:27...and for the first time ever I got out of the water in touch of the leaders! Flew through T1 - no wetsuit stripping issues today.
The bike was pretty tough. There was a strong easterly wind which is the opposite of what Lakeside usually is, meaning the longest stretch of the course was into a 30+km headwind. My bike fitness isn't great right now so I decided not to fight the wind too much and save my legs for the run. I had the fastest T2 (wooo!) and was in 7th about 3:00 behind the leader when I hit the run.
I'm pretty confident about my run fitness right now, and although I found I need to work on running fatigued, I had a solid run. I started picking guys off right away and at the turn-around I was running with a dude from C3 and we decided to work together to mow down the rest of them. With 500m left we had made our way up to 3rd and 4th so I decided to go and I outsprinted him for 3rd overall - :40 down from 2nd and 1:30 from 1st. The 2 guys ahead of me were both 10 years older and I won my age group by like 5 minutes. And I beat the only pro in the field.
What else can I say, things went really well today. I stayed relaxed and within my limits, open water swim PB and excellent transitions and that's all I wanted out of this race. My run pace wasn't great but HSBC races always seem to have slow run courses, so beyond that I'm really happy with this early season result. Huge improvement from last year in how I felt and my speed, and I'm only getting faster.
I got to the race site and caught up with some long lost friends from Worlds last year, then down to business. I finally got my race morning routine down both in terms of nutrition and warm-up and I felt great standing on the start line for the first time in almost a year. My race strategy was pretty simple, race smart and be in control, and I also wanted a swim PB. I had a strong swim and got out of the water in 11:19 and hit the mat at 11:27...and for the first time ever I got out of the water in touch of the leaders! Flew through T1 - no wetsuit stripping issues today.
The bike was pretty tough. There was a strong easterly wind which is the opposite of what Lakeside usually is, meaning the longest stretch of the course was into a 30+km headwind. My bike fitness isn't great right now so I decided not to fight the wind too much and save my legs for the run. I had the fastest T2 (wooo!) and was in 7th about 3:00 behind the leader when I hit the run.
I'm pretty confident about my run fitness right now, and although I found I need to work on running fatigued, I had a solid run. I started picking guys off right away and at the turn-around I was running with a dude from C3 and we decided to work together to mow down the rest of them. With 500m left we had made our way up to 3rd and 4th so I decided to go and I outsprinted him for 3rd overall - :40 down from 2nd and 1:30 from 1st. The 2 guys ahead of me were both 10 years older and I won my age group by like 5 minutes. And I beat the only pro in the field.
What else can I say, things went really well today. I stayed relaxed and within my limits, open water swim PB and excellent transitions and that's all I wanted out of this race. My run pace wasn't great but HSBC races always seem to have slow run courses, so beyond that I'm really happy with this early season result. Huge improvement from last year in how I felt and my speed, and I'm only getting faster.
This is the only decent picture from the race
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